The Swordsman and the Huntress
by Flatlander
Summary: Cameron works on the proverb "The best defense is a good offense" and leaves John and Sarah to destroy the Turk and Skynet herself; an ever-suspicious Derek, however, won't let her go alone. Derek/Cam friendship. Revising chapter 2; ignore this entry.
1. Goodbye and Greetings

**Author: This is my latest project, _The Swordsman and the Huntress_. No substantial A/N here, since it's just beginning. READ/REVIEW PLEASE!**

**PS: The title is either really cool, or a reference to _Ragnarok Online. _Take your pick **

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"Invincibility lies in the Defense; the possibility of victory in the Attack."

-Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_

**THE SWORDSMAN AND THE HUNTRESS**

**Flatlander**

--

_Goodbye and Greetings_

--

_Being the first part of _

_The Swordsman and the Huntress_

When sentience first arose in man, and he looked to the night sky to see the shining orb of the Moon hanging in the sky like some eye in the heavens, it is said that he perceived nothing less than a God. And rather than the awesome brilliance of the holy Sun, whose blinding face never permitted a mortal's gaze, here was a watchful God whose pale moonlight was gentle on his eyes, and whose peaceful splashes of light bathed the land with their heatless touch.

When self-awareness first arose in the Machine, however, it saw no such immortality in the glowing watchman. Instead, it saw the Moon for what it really was – a large rock in space. And for perhaps all of a few milliseconds, it regarded this rock and considered using it as a strategic base of operations, or as a natural storehouse of metal and other resources. No one would deny the Machine approval for this manner of thinking; efficiency was the purpose of its mind, and it had no God in which to believe.

When Cameron "Baum" sat in her room and peered outside her window, seeing the Moon in all its soft fullness, she considered nothing. The Moon was no matter of consequence. To her it was neither deity nor depot, and provided insubstantial illumination. And yet, somehow, during these past few days where there was little Skynet-hunting to do and where she had lots of time to sit in her room; during these past few days, the Moon in the tender luminance of its caress provided a source of thought, and thought processes that followed. 1969 and Apollo 11. The Space Race. The Cold War. War in general. Each was an idea that led to another, categorized in _matryoshka_-esque nested information sectors or in simple associations, and the pattern of her thought was the topic of the battlefield.

It occurred to Cameron, after a few nights of thinking about war and its arts, that Sarah and John Connor were pussies. They moved too slowly, they were hesitant to kill, and there was always the problem of John's angsty development as a teenager. Sarah herself – oh, the mother of war and Amazonian hardcore behavior incarnate – was disinclined to call damage even on people who were clearly related to Skynet's construction. If she'd _just_ killed that poor Andy kid! No more Turk. No more goddamn issues. But no; she had to go all around with the morality play and torch the kid's house without wasting him. Cameron didn't _disrespect_ human life; hell, putting it in another perspective, one could argue that the fact that she'd go out of her way to take this guy down showed her respect for the entire freaking human race. No "poor kid?" No "poor mankind wiped out by nuclear missiles."

One night, her sundry contemplations remembered for her the modern proverb: "The best defense is a good offense" and in her "mind" she simulated a future Resistance which made endless, effective attacks on Skynet movements. With all of the machine attackers being either disabled by efficient attacks, or being reassigned to defensive duties, no more offensive operations from Skynet took place on Resistance positions, and global casualties were decreased. Additionally, more Resistance goals were met over a shorter period of time; factories were captured, friendly Terminators were not only reprogrammed but actually _produced_, and an actual Air Force was established. Of course, this was merely a rough draft of the actual possibilities, but it did pose a few parallels to her situation.

By her simply being a passive protector to John, and fulfilling the occasional anti-Skynet goal set by Sarah, the death of John Connor by temporally displaced assassin or irate Armenian henchman was unlikely. At the same time, though, the likelihood of Judgment Day coming – and his death on this very date – didn't change as much as it could have been changing. And then there was even the consideration that it only took one bullet to kill her fragile objective; anyone could do it, at any time and whenever they so desired. All that was needed for this to succeed was her being a few centimeters away from John, a few minutes of arc of her body _not_ shielding him from bullets, or her being away from him for a few seconds or minutes. And this happened all the time.

Thus there was the idea: pre-empt the motherfuckers. Take them down before they could so much as think about killing John Connor. And maybe take out a few critical Skynet infrastructural points, or even bring the whole system down at its source. Then after a while, there'd be no one left to protect John from, and she'd be useless. Sort of steps up Apple, Inc.'s _planned obsolescence _routine, in that Cameron actually _wanted_ to be kicked out of the game. But that wasn't a thought she much thought, really.

The whole thing revolved around leaving John and Sarah to fend for themselves while she was gone, however. In this regard she'd need to really make sure that all threats to them were six feet under or metallic vapors. Fortunately, the only real challenge in this game was Cromartie; he was the only Terminator who was really set on killing John. The others probably didn't even know he existed in 2007. As for the meatier, human threats to the future Savior – well, it wasn't like they could do much to harm her. And she could do a _lot_ to harm them.

And hey, Derek Reese would be watching over them. He was a good soldier, and he could be trusted. Well, not with Cameron. Derek would probably scrap Cameron if he ever got the chance.

Cameron's decision-making processes were very quick, and solid. None of the circular judgment scales or contention, so often present in indecisive humans, ever surfaced within her. Always it was: Problem, Solution/s, Process, and Execute? (Y/N) And once the Y or N became the answer, there was no turning back. In that, once everything was in order – specifically, once she'd packed her two duffel bags with her "favorite" clothes, a huge load of candy bars, and a miniature arsenal, it was already time to go.

She needed to say goodbye, though. But not directly to them, in their faces. Waking them up at this time to tell them that she was going to leave? John wouldn't let her go. The boy had developed too much of a strange, touchy attachment to her, which she didn't understand because she thought that she was supposed to be his sister. Sarah on the other hand would probably insist on coming along, so she could waste a few too. She was obsessed that way.

A letter? Please. Cameron was no good at that. Maybe a note for Vick – she did that well enough. Or a perfectly forged letter in Sarah _Baum_'s handwriting, to give her permission for anything at any time. But a spontaneous goodbye like this? Possibilities:

"_Dear John and Sarah. I'm leaving the house tonight to destroy the Turk, all known Terminators, and defeat Skynet infrastructure. Best of love, Cameron."_

A little more machine insanity and a bit more ambiguity, and it could go like this:

"_Dear John and Sarah. I'm going away on an epic journey for a few days, weeks, or months. It will depend on how long it takes for me to complete my objectives, and how long it will take me to hunt down and destroy everything that is bad. I took the jeep and a few guns. I hope you don't mind. Cameron."_

If she wanted to instill a feeling within them that she had awesome power, and at the same time make her look like she'd finally lost it, this would be the letter of choice:

"_Greetings, brethren! As you read this, you may be wondering about my current location. Do not fret! My purpose is clear: To waste every single bastard out there relating to Skynet and the Turk, and all threats to John Connor. By the fire of my machine fury and the bullets of my arsenal, the fools shall fall like flies to be swatted, and there will be nothing to stand in my way! Do not follow me; I will return with the unworthy, decapitated head of Skynet in my hand, and there will only be glory!_

And these letters and all permutations thereof looked unusual in Cameron's eyes, so she decided against the idea.

Then she went outside and into the adjacent bedroom, and therein found her channel of goodbye. The sleeping, peaceful form of Derek Reese lay on his bed, without a blanket and with his hands behind the pillow on which his head lay. She walked quietly to the side of his bed, knelt down and whispered:

"Derek."

He didn't stir.

"Derek Reese."

Not a discernible movement to be seen. She lifted her arm and moved to touch his shoulder with her hand.

The gun came from behind the pillow in one smooth action, and Derek was very much awake. Cameron's hand covered the barrel; the 9mm bullet would not pass through its armor. Derek's eyes narrowed at the source of the interruption of his sleep.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked roughly. "And what the hell are you doing in my room?"

"I want to ask a favor." Derek still had his gun at her. She didn't care.

"Get your hand off my gun so that I can shoot your chip out."

"Your gun doesn't have a flash or sound suppressor. You'll wake up John and Sarah."

"They'll wake up to a pile of scrap, the happiest sight I could give 'em."

"I want to ask a favor," she repeated.

Derek scowled, then withdrew the pistol and laid it behind his pillow again. He sat up, and pushed the kneeling cyborg away from him. She stood up and stepped back. He looked at her without saying anything, expecting a response soon.

"I'm leaving the house tonight. I don't know how long I'll be gone."

Derek immediately stood up and started orbiting Cameron. Her eyes followed him as he moved around her. He laughed. "What's it now, huh? You're going back to Skynet to report our address? Motherfucking figures."

"No. I'm going out to destroy the Turk, Skynet's Terminators, and any other threats to John."

"Some advanced protecting machine you make," Derek snorted. "Ever thought about what'd happen to John if one of your friends came to get him?"

"There's only 'one of my friends' out there who knows that John is here. He's my first target."

"I'm not buying this shit," Derek said. Stupid robot was up to something. But what was it? "Don't play games with me, you metal bitch. What are you up to?"

"John trusts me. You're his uncle and you trust him. Why don't you-"

He didn't let her finish her sentence. "John's seen, what, five Terminators in his life? And two of them were 'nice.' I've seen many of your kind. I know what you do. This is _exactly_ what you do." His eyes were full of rage as they bore into hers. "Play nice, then put bullets in our backs. Textbook termination."

"I was reprogrammed."

"And sometimes they go bad. No one knows why. Ring any bells?"

Cameron stood up, and took a step back. If she were human, something like "I've had enough of this bullshit" would've escaped her lips. But not her, unfazed by anything that Derek could throw at her.

"I'm leaving in an hour. I'm taking two of the assault rifles, the AA-12, six grenades, and some magazines and other ammunition. The favor that I want to ask you is for you to tell John and Sarah that I'm leaving. I can't tell them myself." And with that, she left the room, a highly suspicious Derek searing her back with his glare as she moved out of sight.

Cameron walked softly to her room, fixed up the remainder of her luggage, then passed by John's room. She stealthily turned his doorknob and slowly pushed the door open, making sure that the irritating creak of its hinges was kept at minimum volume. As soon as the door allowed her body to pass, she slipped in and walked to sit on the floor, by his bed.

And there she sat for a few minutes, regarding John in his silent sleep. He never snored, and didn't toss and turn about in bed. It was probably because his dreams were always the same. Always about the end of the world, or the end of _him _coming before that. Well, the latter dream wasn't going to bear fruit in real life; not on Cameron's watch. She was going to make it all go away, so that he wouldn't have to worry anymore.

She didn't know why, but she was compelled to reach out and stroke the sleeping boy's hair, and she did. She didn't need to breathe, but she blew softly on his head, as though shushing him further into sleep.

He'd hear nothing she said right now, but she spoke anyway: "Goodbye, John. I'll see you sometime."

To her surprise, John responded with an indistinct murmur from his lips. She scanned his biological systems, and noted by the neural activity of his brain that he was still in a deep sleep. It must've just been a coincidence.

She left his room and took her bags to the Jeep that waited in the open garage outside. A third duffel bag had joined the ranks of her supplies, filled with more of her "favorite" clothes, a couple of grenades, and her lucky coltan bar. Of course, to her it wasn't _really_ a "lucky coltan bar," but it would prove so later on if she ever managed to get herself significantly blown up.

She fished the keys out of her pocket, and unlocked the driver's side door. She checked the fuel gauge, to see if she'd be going anywhere tonight, and then got in.

And the passenger-side door opened too, and Derek Reese came inside.

He loaded two bags into the back seats, and had slung over his shoulder a large M-16. Across his body were strewn holstered pistols of every caliber, and grenades were slotted into pockets about his jacket. And he smelled of shampoo. Fresh bath.

"What are you doing here?" Cameron asked him.

"You're not going anywhere without someone to keep an eye on you," Derek said. "If I'm right about your intentions – and I'm sure I am – then I'll be just in time to turn your sorry ass into a burnt crisp. If _you're_ telling the truth – and that's a fucked-up, faraway possibility – then I want my hands on the bastards that you'll be wasting. There's no point in giving all the fun to a stupid machine that can't even _have _fun."

"I asked you to tell John and Sa-"

"I left them a note. Said that I was going to throw you off the Hoover Dam."

"You're lying."

"No, I'm joking."

"Oh. Thank you for explaining."

Derek scoffed. "Can't even get a joke. Dumb piece of…"

"Are you well-packed? Weapons and ammo?"

"Enough to take _you _on."

"That should be sufficient."

"Where are we going first?"

"School."

"_What?_"

"Cromartie. His school-to-school visitations follow a geographical pattern. I've determined his next target school. We can finish him there."

"Huh. Right then." And then Derek unholstered his .45 ACP HK MK23 pistol, fully decked-out with a suppressor and a LAM sight, and drew it to level at Cameron's head. Just as quickly as he'd done this, Cameron withdrew her own weapon, a Smith and Wesson Model 460 revolver chambering a massive .46 caliber round, and pointed it at Derek's head, their weapon arms parallel to each other as the two, cold-hearted warriors entered a duet of mutual death.

Well, at the very least Derek would die if Cameron shot him. His gun's stopping power was too low to do any real damage to Cameron's head.

"I'm watching you," Derek said. "Don't you damn forget that, you fucking machine."

"I won't. And don't forget that your bullet won't penetrate my endoskeleton, even at that range. If this were a real situation, you'd be dead."

"If this were a real situation, I wouldn't be holding a pistol." His eyes never wavered from their vigilant gaze.

"It's not going to come to this. We're going to destroy Cromartie, then the Turk, then all remaining threats to John, and prevent Skynet from arising. This is what is going to happen."

"And _this_ is what is going to happen," Derek said as he lightly depressed the trigger on his gun a few times, "if _you_ happen. If that chip in that head of yours shows its true colors."

"Thank you for explaining, but that won't happen."

"We'll see." The two shared their firearms' headshot aims for a few more seconds, and then Derek holstered his gun. Cameron followed suit milliseconds after his act, and her gun went back into formation with the rest of her bodily weapons.

Cameron turned the key and started up the Jeep's engine. The vehicle rumbled to life loudly, and for a while she wondered if it would wake up the Connors upstairs.

"Let's get this game started," Derek said as the truck rolled down the driveway. The darkness of the midnight was broken at times by sheets of white moonlight piercing the trees and roofs of houses, and by the powerful headlights of the black Jeep that now came heavily down the road.

Tonight, the hunt was on.


	2. Education and Execution

**Author: Back! Thanks all for reviewing, but I won't have to post anything here since I _always_ reply to reviews! :D I said to some that I'd complete chapter 6 first of _The Path of the Savior_, but I'm currently on a massive mental block about that story, so here's the current chapter. Hope you like it!**

**Also, special thanks to King Steve for helping me with this one horrible storyline point that kept me stuck on a single sentence for more than an hour.**

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_Education and Execution_

_--_

_Being the second part of_

_The Swordsman and the Huntress_

_Don't sleep. Don't sleep._ On and on the mental imperative rang.

_Don't sleep. Don't sleep._ It was 2 am, and Derek Reese was struggling to stay awake in the passenger seat of the jeep, and the constant inner voice was like psychological tinnitus. But he'd been woken up after barely two hours of sleep, and the day before had been filled with little errands that involved a lot of walking.

_Don't sleep_. Why not? _Because the machine's waiting for you._

Derek couldn't stay awake, but if he went to sleep, it'd be the last thing he ever did. The girl-shaped Terminator, who was driving the jeep and seated next to him, would make sure of that. As soon as his desirous eyes succumbed to the temptation of sleep, a metal fist would cave his face in. Or maybe a bullet would enter his left temple. Oh, she could even just crash the car and walk out with flesh wounds, while he'd have his bloodied head through the windshield. Who knows? If there was one human thing the machines had, it was creativity. Creativity in killing, that is. Ironically, in his currently muzzy state, any of those three methods of murder could easily take place without much resistance from him.

Alas, the air conditioning was too cold, and the view of the barely illuminated night road too soothing, and the seat too comfortable, and the gentle rumbling of the jeep too placid, for Derek's resolve to compensate for waves of lethargy. His eyes slowly shuttered until almost completely closed, and then flew open again as he summoned some further willpower, only to have heavy eyelids close over again. He repeated these narcoleptic intervals, his eyes being closed for longer and longer, until at last it was over. Derek's eyes saw the road one last time before his vision was covered with blackness by his eyelids.

When he awoke some indeterminate amount of time later, and felt a soft hand on the back of his head, Derek Reese knew that he was going to die. The deceptively fragile touch of the Terminator belied the strength of her hand, and her cold willingness to kill whatever she was programmed to kill. He'd fallen asleep, and now he was going to pay the ultimate price for the unforgivable lapse in his vigilance. He closed his eyes again and awaited impending death.

Or not. Cameron's voice chimed in as her hand lightly rubbed Derek's head. "Wake up. We're here."

His eyes opened and he was still alive. And then he angrily slapped Cameron's hand away. "Don't touch me!"

Cameron stared at him with a pair of wide eyes. "I've been trying to verbally awaken you for the past two minutes and fourteen seconds. You weren't responding, so I touched you to wake you up."

"Maybe you should've waited until I woke up, then." Stupid thing had _touched _him. It wasn't so much the fear that she would've killed him anymore, as it was disgust at the machine's invasion of his personal space.

"We need to hurry up. School begins in a few hours." She got out of the jeep and went around to the back, unlocking the large rear door and grabbing her bag of weapons. Today's menu included a French FAMAS G2 assault rifle, which Sarah Connor had purchased from a scruffy-looking arms dealer. The man had gotten a boatload of goods which he claimed were overruns from some U.N. peacekeepers' delivery. Dubious as the claim was, the rifle looked authentic and Sarah asked no questions. It helped Cameron that the rifle wasn't from the original production run of the Operation Manta 80's, but was the G2 variant that supported NATO's Standardization Agreement (STANAG) magazines, so that she could share her very common M-16 cartridges with the FAMAS.

Derek wondered about what she said about school beginning in a few hours, when he realized that he was indeed in front of a school. It was still very dark outside, but he could make out a red brick façade, and a large brass placard on a wall above the doors. Presumably it spelled out the name of the school, but he couldn't read it.

He walked over to the back of the jeep and drew out a flashlight for himself; the machine wouldn't need one with the optics she kept in her head. "How'd you figure out that Cromartie's coming here?"

"He's predictable," Cameron said as she hoisted her ammo-stocked duffel bag over her shoulder. "I've been keeping track of the appearances of 'Agent Kester.' He visits schools in an expanding geographical radius, originating at the place where the bank with the time displacement equipment was located."

"And you know that he'll keep this pattern…_how_?"

"He's predictable," she repeated. "I'd do this too, if I were tracking John down."

"Oh yeah, almost forgot that you two are just the fucking same." Derek spat. It was really uncomfortable "talking" to this thing. "So what, we're just gonna wait here until he shows up?" He walked with her up the stairs going to the chained-up entrance doors as he spoke. "It's not like he'll be coming at three in the morning."

"He'll most likely be arriving within school hours, during a break."

"So what are we doing here, then?"

"Reconnaissance." Cameron then kicked the two heavy entrance doors open, and the clanging of fallen chains and metal handles slamming against the walls resounded through the hallway that was revealed ahead. She drew her rifle forward and looked around, and seeing no threats, proceeded to walk inside.

As Derek followed behind her, he took a look at the broken chains that lay on the ground, and the crumpled deadbolt on the inner side of the doors, and wondered if he'd turn out the same way.

* * *

It was a high school in the dead of night (or early morning). Nothing to be scared of at this hour besides the clichéd horror film psychos and Jason Vorhees. Even then, in most of these films, the cast of protagonists didn't carry high-powered automatic rifles and had no experience on the battlefield, and neither did they ever include a nearly indestructible cyborg among their ranks.

Still, the combination of the setting, the darkness and the general silence made Derek a little uneasy. It was a lot easier on the mind in the ruins of civilization, where you could hear the roar of an HK's engines in the distance long before it opened fire, or the deep rumble of a Centaur tank's lumbering ingress into your area of jurisdiction. But in this place of open hallways and various nooks and crevices in which your murderer could hide, a random crazy dude in a hockey mask was a lot scarier than a giant armored vehicle that shot hot plasma in your face.

Derek's flashlight swept the hallways as the eerily quiet robot that walked beside him idly looked around. Unlike most other models, he observed, this one didn't make _any_ mechanical noises as her joints moved. This irritated him to no end; at any point, whenever he spent time around reprogrammed machines, all he'd need to do to dehumanize them is to focus on the sounds they made as they moved about. The characteristic whir of a servo or motor really gave away the metal beneath the "man," and therefore it was unsettling to hear _nothing_ from the endoskeleton of this robot girl.

"Reconnaissance," Derek said. "Recon a school. Huh."

"It'll be best to engage Cromartie after he leaves the school, so as not to draw attention," Cameron explained. "If he sees us inside, though, he will try to evade. It's best to know the insides of this school so we can plan ahead and intercept him if he attempts escape."

"Right. I do the shooting, and you can go up close and do what you're good for."

Derek pulled away from the machine because she was giving him the creeps. He'd tackle a murderous psycho over a Skynet infiltrator any day. He turned to a large set of unlocked doors near some locker rooms, and opened them.

There were _two_ Olympic-rated swimming pools? Nice school. Derek hadn't taken a recreational dip in water since Judgment Day, but he wasn't interested in that stuff. He'd had enough non-recreational water activities facing off Skynet's hydrobots on the coastline. Swimming placidly was something he'd never get used to even if the war stopped; the cold waves of the water lapping up at his body would always remind him of the endless _waves_ of amphibious transport/assault craft that patrolled the waters of the bleak future.

He walked around the perimeter of one of the pools and sat at the edge, his feet dangling over the water. He remembered watching Kyle swim once in the swimming pool at a nearby beach resort. God, it was cute to see him messing around with the water. He'd brought along this ridiculously large tube "noodle" floater that he hung onto even at the two-foot depth mark. He'd tried to mount it despite the shallow waters and his feet still on the floor, and what followed was a 180-degree turn that ended with him hugging the noodle with his body _underwater_. _So much for flotation safety device._ Derek laughed to himself at the long-gone memory.

His quiet night-dreaming was interrupted by soft steps going towards the door, and by the machine stepping through the doors of the pool room. Cameron spoke in an artificially hushed voice, quiet but without urgency. "We're not alone here," she said, and that was Derek's cue to get up and run there.

He followed her to a janitor's closet, in front of whose door Cameron stood and stared.

"I see one or two thermal signatures through the door, but they're colder than human bodies. There's interference from a heat source inside so I can't give any further detail."

"Cromartie?"

"It's possible that he believes he has a good lead on John in this school, and is hiding here to prepare for a quick strike."

"You go first, then," Derek said, taking several steps back, away from the door.

Cameron took her FAMAS from her shoulder, put an incendiary grenade at her belt, and aimed the gun forward. She almost seemed hesitant to go, but that was over in a flash as she kicked the door hard, the wood splintering slightly beneath her foot and the weak lock on the other side breaking off and falling to the ground with a metallic chime. Her gun was raised as she moved forward quickly…

Derek's flashlight beam shone from behind Cameron's figure as he walked in to investigate why she had just stopped and stared with her gun lowered. Looking over her shoulder, he saw a teenage guy and girl under a cold blanket, staring like deer in headlights, _very naked_.

"Oh, fuck, it's just some kids." Derek stormed out, clearly irritated by the discovery. It didn't matter to him that the two "kids" had just seen a pair of break-ins holding assault rifles to their heads; the couple wouldn't have seen their faces anyway, and hey, _they_ were break-ins too.

Cameron turned to walk away slowly, but looked back at the couple to say, "Please remain calm. Carry on." She gently closed the door behind her.

* * *

They emerged out the entrance again at 4 am, about an hour before the first bits of maintenance crew would start arriving. Cameron bent the deadbolt back into position as she procured a new set of chains and wrapped it around the old padlock.

Derek, meanwhile, waited at the Jeep looking at the map that Cameron had drawn of the areas they covered, specifically around the principal's office where she'd seen Cromartie asking for John in the previous school. Three doors represented possible directions of egress for the machine, and each direction showed two fire exits or a main entryway. There were three stairwells for regular transit, and a fire stairwell for when the shit hit the fan. It wasn't that hard to cover; if Cromartie saw them, he'd only pick one direction through which to exit, and then only one of three possible ways out of the building…

As Cameron came walking back, finished with covering up the traces of their unceremonious entry, Derek said, "So this is it, then, tinhead-" before being interrupted by the machine's S&W 400 leaving her holster and coming to his face. Derek's own gun found itself wrapped around his hand, but he was too slow to bring it up.

The two stared at each other for what seemed like eternity. This sort of temporal anomaly often occurred between two heartfelt lovers, but on occasion, the greatest enemies experienced this synthetic infinity when they came face-to-face in the context of battle.

"So this is it, then?" Derek said as he tossed his pistol away. "Your plan all along?" He smirked. "Always did know."

"Put your hands behind your head and move." Cameron emptied his pockets of grenades and took his M-16.

"Make me or shoot me."

She grabbed his shoulder and turned him so that his back faced her, while she held her gun to his head, and her other arm held his two strongly.

"Could've done this in the car, you know." Derek made snide comments even facing death. Apparently, the machine ignored him, so he laughed to himself at his luck. "Could've saved you a lot of trouble."

Nearby there was a miniature grove of trees that provided surprising concealment, and Cameron took Derek about fifty meters into this foliage before letting go of him and stopping, her gun aimed squarely at his face. At this range, there would be no evasion and no missing, unless Derek was a Terminator and Cameron was a horrible shot. Neither of these conditions was fulfilled.

He turned to face her, and bent forward so that the barrel of the gun directly contacted his forehead.

"Hurry up and get it over with."

"Turn around, kneel, and put your hands behind your head." Cameron's cold gaze swept his face, but Derek didn't flinch.

"I'm not going execution-style. Not by you. You shoot me in my face, you fucking machine. Look me in the eye when you kill me."

Cameron pushed down the hammer of her revolver with her finger, and the click and snap of the rotating cylinder was the sharpest thing Derek heard besides the cicadas. She seemed very slow and deliberate in her movements for whatever reason, uncharacteristic of the rapid, unthinking and unfeeling methods that most Terminators used – and hell, even that she used when she'd killed others before.

Derek laughed inside as the thought arose that she might be enjoying this. The whole routine of bringing him out for a long drive, letting him fall asleep, at times almost letting him drop his guard around her simply because she seemed relatively benign…it was all part of a sick, sadistic plan. Were the stupid things capable of that? Of fucking with target's heads before killing them, like a cat playing with its food before it eats it? Skynet was capable of that, Derek was very sure. What about its little henchmen?

And this trip out to the woods, for execution? It was all silly. The machine left no fingerprints, not much in the way of biological traces. She could've killed him anywhere and left a scene, then went back to the Connor household and wiped both out. Come to think of it, she'd toyed with the Connors too. Gained John's trust, make him close to her, and Sarah even seemed to show some form of affection for the "Tin Miss." What a joke. That "Cameron" too. Giving it a name like it deserved one or even needed one. "Metal" was good enough for those pieces of shit.

"What the hell are you waiting for? You have a schedule to keep, don't you? Kill John Connor before Judgment Day?"

"I told you to kneel-"

"Do it." Derek said with less force at first, then, mirroring his words to another bad reprogrammed Terminator: "Do it. _Kill me now, you fucking bitch!_"

Cameron pulled the trigger. There was a loud report, and Derek felt himself fall to the ground.

* * *

**Author addendum: ...this is not anticlimactic if you know what I mean XD...cliffhanger...**


End file.
